THE WALKING DEAD: Harvey And Adair Think It's No ACCIDENT

Season 4, Episode 1 “30 Days Without an Accident”

[photos: AMC]

Dustin: It’s happening!! It’s all happening!!

Timothy: Yes. It is indeed.

Dustin: SO are we excited or are we apprehensive?

Timothy: Both? Excihensive?

Dustin: Yeah, that sounds about right.

Did you hear about Norman Reedus talking about how Daryl and Glenn were hooking up this season?

I knew it! I told you!

He was kidding.

Suuuuure he was.

Are you actually winking at me? In an incredibly exaggerated way?

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Mmmm hmmm. So, do you have any predictions?

Sigh. Do I have to?

Yes, yes you do.

Fine.

1. Things will start off slow, there will be a burst of action and then slowness again.

2. Rick will have some sort of emotional revelation.

3. Carl will start carving the number of his kills into his arm.

4. Michonne will glower at everyone.

5. Pants.

I’m sorry, did you say pants?

Pants.

Whokay. Shall we?

Let’s shall.

Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to Mr. Dustin Adair and my review/recap/analysis and general ramblings regarding AMC’s The Walking Dead! We are, as always, joined by our studio audience of one, Miss Anne-Marie. Wave hi to the nice people Anne-Marie. You can’t see her folks, but she waved. Really. Just like last season, what you are about to read contains spoilers, questionable behavior and is of dubious worth, and, like the show we are discussing, of a somewhat adultish nature. This would be your only warning, so if you are the kind of person who might take offense at such things, well, abandon hope all ye, etc. etc. 

These intros of yours get weirder and weirder.

Yep. You’re on, sir.  

Exterior, vegetable garden, day. Rick is all ‘Life is good, you guys’ and tills his soil with the best of them. Oh, do I even have to mention he has an audience of walkers? No, no I do not.

Well, gardening is a spectator sport, right?

He finds a gun in the soil. He looks at it for a second before throwing it into the junk pile and putting his iPod back in and going back to tilling.

Dear Lord. That would be something of a blatant metaphor right there. The only way it could be more blatant is if it was a sword. Could Rick have renounced violence?

Where did he get the juice for iTunes? It’s a mystery.

I would imagine there are a lot of unused batteries about, and a shortage of lines at the Apple Store.

AMC is a really dude centric channel, you guys. Like do they have a single show headed by a female character? I do not think so.

Carl comes down to the farm. That kid is so not ten years old.

I wonder how long this time jump is supposed to be. Obviously one of the things we wanted (see our previous entry, where we are brilliantly demanding) happened. But how long?

He named the damn pigs. Also they have pigs. One of which is named Violet and is a little sick. Good thing they have a vet; do you think they remember they have a vet? (It’s Hershel, you guys)

Oh wow. Never name the food, guys. Always a bad idea.

Meanwhile, up at the… food thing… Daryl, Carol and some new Poindexter looking kid are all interacting. The Poindexter wants to shake Daryl’s hand because he brought in a deer.

Good to know that even in a Zombie Apocalypse the Food Court will survive. Apparently Daryl has been leading survivors to the prison, and has built up a little fan club. Of the female persuasion. And Carol tells him she “saw him first.” Thinking they may have become a couple while we were away.

Whatever. Meanwhile, out on the fence, Melissa Ponzio and some other folks are cleaning out the walkers, there are a lot of them, some of them are bleeding from the eyes… which is… gross. Did I mention that some of the walkers that were watching Rick were bleeding from the eyes? Hrm…

Interesting is what that is. Looks like the walkers are beginning to rot finally. Wonder what that means?

Carol takes Daryl to see the buildup of the walkers and how there are way more of them than there have ever been.

And she calls him, what? “Pookie?” Yeah, these two are soooo a couple.

I didn’t hear her say that.

Uh huh.

Shut up. Glenn and Maggie are sleeping, well, Maggie is sleeping. When Maggie wakes up, Glenn tells her that she should not go on the raiding party. They argue about it but eventually Glenn wins.

She’s not arguing too much, and it seems like… ohhhhhh. I think she might be pregnant.

Tyresse comes up and makes sex talk with my Melissa Ponzio! Tyresse is all weird about killing the walkers on the fence, he’s a wimp, Melissa! Leave him!! Scotty needs you elsewhere.

They kiss and she goes back to work.

And it looks like we’re kinda getting another thing we wanted, because these are not the original Team Zombie folks, and we’re getting character moments! Sweet. On the other had? Pretty sure Tyreese just had more dialogue than Theodore got the first two seasons.

We miss you Theodore, we miss you. Daryl and Beaver from Veronica Mars are loading the truck for the raid when Daughter Fodder walks up. Beaver tries to get Daughter to get all gooshey and weepy about the fact that he is about to go on a raid, but Daughter Fodder is all like “Bitch, my name is Daughter Fodder, I’ve been there.”

And for the kids at home, she would also known as the younger Greene daughter, whose name is Beth. Beth Greene. She has a name.

Whatever. Beaver asks her to tell him goodbye and she’s like, nope.

He’s zombie chow. Calling it.

Some young black guy comes up to Shovel and asks to go on the raid, she gives worried face.

Also known as Sasha, Tyreese’s sister. She has a name. And considering that we already have a new Black Guy in Tyreese, this new guy, who seems to have been a medic? Yeah, no wonder Sasha is worried.

Yeah, it’s Shovel. Hershel and Rick are gardening. Hershel shows him how to prune and replant. It’s just the most blunt metaphor. Again.

Suddenly…

It’s Michonne! On a horse!!

Riding up to the gates, and oh wow. That’s kinda cool. Zombie on a stick.

Team Zombie has made a lot of improvements to the prison gates… I wonder when they are going to get around to the rest of the fencing?

Michonne brings Carl some comics and she says she is going to stay for a little while… Michonne is apparently going out on searches for The Governor and not really staying at the prison much.

Gonna go out on a limb and say it’s doubtful she’s forgiven him for anything.

Michonne decides to join the raid and Rick avoids joining the party by saying he wants to go check the snares. Carl wants to go check snares too, but Rick tells him to stay in the damn house.

‘Cause that’s worked out so well in the past.

Hershel busts Rick’s balls a little about being a farmer, and tells him that he should really bring a gun out to check the snares.

This whole “no gun” thing can’t last, can it?

There is a council which includes Daryl, Hershel, Carol, Sasha (Shovel) and some other idiot whose name I don’t remember are on it.

Rick is out checking snares. He finds a lady in the woods? Is she a lady? YES SHE IS!!

Wearing his gun. Does he really think he’s going to be able to walk away from his past here? And for a minute I thought she was a talking zombie and how that would be really kinda cool and really kinda awful all at once.

So Rick and the strange lady have a discussion in the woods, I really wonder if this is a hallucination.

The lady asks for food and Rick gives her some, then she asks if she and her husband can come back to the prison, Rick is… skeptical.

Well, Team Zombie has had some bad experiences with strangers in the past after all.

He tells the lady that she can come back if he meets her husband and asks them some questions.

Back at the prison, there are some dumb kids taunting the walkers. Carl and Poindexter come over to berate them. The girls think Carl is a gross loser and probably has cooties. But they invite him to come to Story Time anyway. Poindexter says story time is actually kind of fun, but Carl thinks it’s for babies.

OK, these are really dumb kids. How long has this been since the end of last season? Who is teaching these kids that walkers aren’t dead?

Daryl and the away team head to a place they think must have food. It was some sort of army base in a Big Lots parking lot… you know… as you do. They have been planning this raid for weeks, and even used a boom box to lure the walkers away from the place.

Daryl and Beaver are outside the Big Lots talking about what Daryl did before the outbreak. Beaver says that Daryl must have been a homicide detective. Michonne laughs. Daryl says its true but of course it’s a terrible lie. I think it’s pretty obvious Beaver is not long for this world.

Zombie Chow. Definitely.

Shovel leads the team into the Big Lots. Before they go in, the Medic looks down and sees a pair of pants!! Pants!!! Oh, and there is a wrecked helicopter on the roof.

Really? This is your “pants” thing?

So the dirty lady takes Rick back to her husband and tells him their life story; it’s all pretty typical actually, stranded at the airport, used to be a huge group of survivors now it’s just the two of them, they have had to do terrible things to survive. She gets all weepy about her husband. How he saved her or whatever. I really hope he’s dead when they get there.

Um. Why, exactly?

Because that would be great and I am terrible.

I’m kinda thinking she’s a trap, actually. And yeah, you kinda are.

I regret nothing. Meanwhile, out at the raid, Michonne cuts up a Frankenstein standee. Glenn looks at a thing with baby names on it and looks all sad. The medic pointedly looks at the wine, but does not take a bottle… until he does. But not before listening to the sound of the roof creaking. He picks up a bottle of wine, but puts it back down and knocks the whole shelf over. The noise makes the walkers on the roof start to move around.

Then they begin to fall through the roof!!

And wait, what? All these walkers on the roof and none of them have fallen through the roof before now? Really? Not one?

I bet this lady and her husband are cannibals. Yeah, that is what I think.

She is so a trap, kids.

Meanwhile at Big Lots, Glenn is attacked, but he is able to defend himself as everyone shoots at everything. Shovel uses a pool cue as a bo staff. The medic is still trapped.

Is this guy dead already? Ah, no, he’s saved. OK, good. Can’t really care about him if we don’t know anything about him yet.

The helicopter starts to fall!

Beaver is bitten and eaten.

Zombie. Chow.

RIPieces Beaver.

Wonder who gets to tell Beth?

The lady leads Rick to her husband… who is… a walker head? In a bag? Which is gross. Trisha wants to know if she still goes to bed with it.

Then the lady stabs herself and Rick cries because, yeah, why not.

Mmmmkay. So… what? She couldn’t kill Rick so she’s going to kill herself so she can be with her dead husband as a walker, is that what’s happening here? Ain’t love grand.

She asks Rick what the questions are, so he tells her.

How many walkers have you killed?

Eddie killed them all.

How many people have you killed?

Just herself.

Why?

Because you can’t take back the things you have done.

I wonder why she didn’t just let herself become a walker when her husband became one… but then where would our story be?

Where would we get another metaphor for Rick? Not subtle, but kinda cool anyway.

Hey, it’s Carol, remember Carol? She’s reading to the kids until the adults all leave… Then she pulls out the knives to teach the children about the knives!! I love it. I love you Carol. We are married.

Hmmm. Not so sure that keeping these lessons secret makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, surely it’s best to give these kids some training in how to defend themselves against the walkers, right?

Carl sneaks into the library and sees Carol teaching the kids about knives. When Carol sees him, she asks him not to tell his dad and Carl runs away.

Where did Bloodthirsty Carl go? I’m happy to see him gone, and I’m kinda in shock that Carl “stayed in the house”, but how much time has passed here?

Back in the garden Rick checks on Violet the pig, but she is dead. He is pretty torn up about it.

Yeah. Naming the food is a bad idea, folks. Don’t do it.

Melissa Ponzio is sewing when Tyresse comes back, and it turns out Tyresse = kind of a wimp.

Now now. Not everyone is cut out to be an action hero.

Maggie and Glenn talk about big dead Beaver, and how she is not pregnant and how great it is. Maggie wants to have kids and live in hope, but Glenn is afraid of it.

Feels like foreshadowing to me.

Daughter Fodder is writing in her dream journal when Daryl comes to tell her about Beaver. She is sad, but not torn up about it. WHERE ARE THEY GETTING THIS ELECTRICITY FROM?

Well, there’s a generator right? And… apparently an unlimited amount of fuel.

Daughter Fodder is not a crier anymore. People die and she’s over it. She needs to give Rick some damn lessons. She and Daryl hug it out.

I get this, and to some degree it makes sense, given all Beth has gone through, but it’s sad too, that she’s gotten that detached. Or maybe she really hasn’t, since she talks about how she’s glad she got to know him.

MICHONNE HAS A MAP OF GEORGIA EVERYONE!!

Ahhh, but did she share it with the writers?

Hershel and Rick and Ass-Kicker have a powwow about the crazy lady.

Aha! It’s been about 9 months! OK, I can buy that. Long enough for Rick to do his farmer thing and to reconnect with Carl, OK. Which makes Carl about about 11/12, right? Still too young, but at least he’s more human here. 

The medic cries in the bunk.

Later, Poindexter wanders out to the showers, he is coughing and sickly. He dies and his eyes are all bloody… hrm…

And he’s coughing into the water that people use for the showers? And then he’s dead.

Dead and a walker. Inside the prison. At night. When everyone is asleep.

Oh yeah, this is gonna get messy.

So what did you think? I thought this was a really good kickoff to the new season. Snark aside, it was a really good episode, bringing us into the new dynamic at the prison, reintroducing us to the characters, new and old, and giving us some great scenes.

It really was. The metaphor thing was pretty heavy, yeah, but it’s Rick after all, and Carl wasn’t horrible to him for a change. Tyreese is a bit of a wuss, but my Melissa Ponzio is good with the walker stabby thing, so that’s OK then. It was really good. We got some of the things we wanted from this season already. Well, so far anyway.

An excellent start. And a bit of a cliffhanger too. Now about those predictions of yours…

I am so on it this week.

You kinda are, actually.

Ain’t no “kinda” about it.

OK, I’ll give you the slow/action/slow/action. In fact I’ll say the pace this week was just about perfect.

See? I. Am. On. It.

And I’ll give you Rick having a revelation, although with a qualifier, since we’re only one episode in, and Rick can be slow on the uptake.

I’ll take it, and give you the qualifier. But if Rick hasn’t got the message yet, and we have to watch him dither, I’m gonna be pissed.

You and me both. But that would be a no on the Carl carving his kills into his arm thing. In fact, Carl seems to have turned back into a human child, and not the Horrible Monster he was at the end of last season. I like it. The word from the production folks is that he and Rick are doing much better as a family this season, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of that. And Michonne, well…

Michonne has a horse!

She does. And a lot of smiles for everyone. And comics for Carl. Not a lot of glaring, which, one does have to admit is kind of a shame since she does the glaring thing so well, but still. And she has a map! Oh map, how we’ve missed you. But no, you don’t get that one either.

But I did get the pants right.

You’re really going to claim the severed lower half of a person as a win?

Was it wearing pants?

Well, yes, but…

Pants.

And there you have it folks. Pants. Well, that’s us for this week. Tune in next time when you’ll hear Dustin say:

Wait. What? What’s happening?

See you next week!

>>>>>

[Official Show Site at AMC]

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